Bourne’s Nutcracker! limbers up for Liverpool & Lowry

According to press material, “This delicious theatrical feast has
family-sized helpings of Matthew Bourne’s trademark wit, pathos and
magical fantasy.”

Nutcracker!, featuring Tchaikovsky’s
legendary score, follows Clara’s bittersweet journey from a hilariously
bleak Christmas Eve at Dr. Dross’ Orphanage, through a shimmering,
ice-skating winter wonderland to the scrumptious candy kingdom of
Sweetieland.

Directed and choreographed by multi award-winner Matthew Bourne (Swan Lake, Edward Scissorhands, Cinderella), it is co-devised by Martin Duncan, with lighting design by Howard Harrison and sound design by Paul Groothius.

Matthew Bourne said: “When our Nutcracker!
premiered with Opera North at the Edinburgh Festival in 1992, none of
us had any idea that it would still be around twenty years later. I
remember my trepidation at approaching such a classic of the ballet
repertoire, little knowing that one day it would become something of a
classic in its own right.”

“It seems only right on this
occasion to thank my original collaborators, Martin Duncan and Anthony
Ward, for helping to create a story and a set of characters that have
become much loved throughout the UK, and of course Nicholas Payne, the
then director of Opera North, who took the gamble of commissioning a
very small, quirky young dance company to take on Tchaikovsky’s glorious
masterpiece.”